Posted on 19 November 2012

Content marketing is something that’s talked about a lot in online marketing circles. If you search any forum or online marketing information site, you will find tons of entries about it. Some people may think that it’s something that affiliate marketers use to push shady nutritional supplement CPA offers or the latest “make money now” ebook from Clickbank. Sure, it can be used for that. But it can also be an important element in a businesses overall online marketing strategy. It can help a company connect with its audience, promote its brand and draw attention to itself. Sometimes it can lead to direct sales. Other times, it will just inform the site visitor and let them make the decision as to whether the company’s products are right for them at this very moment.

If you’re serious about deploying a content marketing strategy for your business, then you need to do things in a well planned way. You wouldn’t start a Google Adwords campaign without doing the proper research beforehand. You shouldn’t start content marketing without a plan either. Before you even define your objectives and see what you want to accomplish by using this kind of marketing approach, there are a few questions that you need to ask yourself.

Here are some of the main ones:

Do you really know your company and your brand?

You may say “sure I do!” but when it comes to creating content, you need to ask yourself: what exactly does my company do and what is its purpose. What do you want it to do in the future and how do you want to get there successfully. This will help guide you into producing the right kind of content.

You also need to be aware of your brand and its overall style. Do you want to keep going as you’ve been doing right now, or are there certain things you want to change? If until now, you’ve taken a more traditional and serious approach, it may not be a good idea to start loading every page with jokes and using memes just because it “looks cool” and you’ve seen others do it. If your brand isn’t that popular online yet, changing direction may be possible, but you should know that it will affect the way your audience sees your company for a long time. Therefore, you need to think about both the short and long term implications of the content that you’re going to post online for marketing purposes.

These are the two main things that you need to reflect about when you’re starting an online content marketing campaign. Of course, there are other elements that you need to keep in consideration to build a complete marketing strategy that you can use in the long term. There are additional elements that we will explore tomorrow and will give you a clearer picture.

Posted on 27 October 2012

So, now you know that your Facebook page isn’t quite working out the way you were planning in the beginning. You bought into the whole “Make a Facebook page and it will be a magic online marketing solution”, except that it’s anything but magic. You have a few fans, but they don’t seem to pay too much attention to what you’re posting. You may get a few likes and shares here and there, but the numbers are really dismal. Maybe you get a comment or two on posts that you make, but once again, this is just a comment or two. No matter how hard you try to be interesting, it’s not really working out for you. So, what is causing all of this negativity and how to fix it? Here are some of the possible reasons:

You’re not really posting anything interesting

You need to consider that people who are on Facebook are there to communicate and be entertained. This isn’t a business directory like the Yellow Pages. This isn’t LinkedIn, where serious individuals wearing suits and ties scour profile looking for business opportunities and profitable partnerships. You have real people who are looking for something interesting.

Try to make your posts provoke a reaction among your audience. Maybe use humor. Post content that is varied, not the same thing over and over again. Post different types of content: text, pictures, infographics, videos, etc. But above all, show some enthusiasm yourself. Now you don’t need to jump up and down with excitement every day about your Facebook page, but if you’ve made it to be a chore, or just another item on your online marketing “to do” list, that lack of enthusiasm will translate into poor quality posts. You need to make everything that you post meaningful and likable to your audience.

You’re talking about yourself a bit too much

But social media marketing is all bout “marketing”, right? Getting people to look at your stuff and hope that they will buy things from you, no? Well… sure that’s something that you can use it for, but it’s more than just about promoting yourself. If all that you do is post links to products on your website, or link to blog posts that you’ve made, your fans will lose the motivation to follow your posts with interest. When your stuff appears on their news feeds, it will be just one more “ad” to them and they will rapidly come to ignore them, even if they had a bit of interest in your products in the beginning.

Try to write some interesting content related to your industry. Link to articles, videos, inforgraphics, etc. that you find online, even if they don’t come from your won business. Find content that your fans may like and then share it on your page. Remember, your Facebook page shouldn’t be one big advertising page, but rather a way to communicate and exchange with your fans, even if every exchange doesn’t end with a sale.

Posted on 06 September 2012

In an increasingly mobile world, an equally increasing number of users from all demographics are now using smartphones to find what they need. We have seen before that a great amount of searches made by mobile users result in a purchase being made by the person using the smartphone. Local business owners, as well as the online marketing experts responsible for promoting these businesses need to know all about mobile marketing and how they can harness its power. It gives businesses a great opportunity in the online world, but mobile marketing needs to be done right for it to be effective.

Here are some tips that will be useful:

Have a mobile compatible site

We’ve probably gone through this about a hundred times in the past year, but it’s worth repeating. Your business site needs to be mobile compatible if you want to benefit from smartphone traffic. It’s simple to do if you know the right tools, many of which are available for free. Too much trouble? Not good in web design? Just hire an affordable freelancer who could make a good site for $50 to $100. It will be worth it. Your site content should be direct and to the point. Yes, do include calls to action and a good sales copy, but keep the fluff to a minimum and save the purely informational stuff for your blog. While smartphone users do conduct research, it is SHORT research and they just want the basic attributes of your products. It’s highly unlikely that putting the history of your company on your homepage will have much influence on a mobile user’s decision.

Local SEO and targeting is of utmost importance

When someone searches for a product on a smartphone, they usually need something local to them. If you use paid advertising services, geotarget your ads appropriately. If you do SEO, make sure that you do the right local SEO which will help users within range of your business to find its site.

Put a map on your mobile site

Some who are looking for your business may not be familiar with the area. Google Maps is your friend here. Include a map on your website, as well as the option for the user to get driving directions to your location. This increases the chance the user will go to your business first before checking out any competitors. If they have a map on their site and you don’t… guess what… you lose.

Have a call button too

Sometimes the user will want to call your business first. Having a phone number on your site is good, and obviously something you should do. But what’s even better? A “Call Us Now” button that when pressed will cause the smartphone to automatically call you. This makes it simpler for the user to get in touch with you.

Add your business to local directories and social media

Add your business to social media sites, local business directories and place a few classified ads. This will not only help with SEO, but further increase the chances that a smartphone user will become aware of your business and use its services.

Posted on 16 August 2012

This year, Facebook has made a great deal of changes to the way its social networking site works. Many of these changes have a good impact on those who use the site for marketing purposes. While the social network itself may have evolved, the main principles behind social media marketing seem to remain unchanged for now. It’s just that it’s now easier and more convenient for marketers to connect with their audience and share information. Here are some of the most noticeable changes we’ve seen and some that we’re expecting.

Timeline for marketers. The adoption of the timeline design for profiles has been met with quite a lot of controversy when it was announced in 2011. Some users didn’t mind it, while many others resisted the change believing that the old design was better. But just like many other Facebook changes, people have eventually come to get used to it and accepted it. The Timeline is responsible for changing the way in which people interact with the social network. It has also had some positive effects on businesses that use the site for marketing. Some studies suggest that since the Timeline was introduced, brands receive over 40 percent more engagement for each post that they make.

The “Want” Button. Currently, we have the ever present “Like” button on Facebook. But there are many rumors that are now circulating in online marketing circles that Facebook may be planning to launch a “Want” button. As some of you may have guessed by now, this type of feature would be most beneficial for e-commerce site owners. Having a Want button can be useful when it comes to seeing just how many people are interested in what you have to offer them. If it was available when you launch new products and inform your Facebook fans, the Want button could generate a lot more interest for your new additions. However, it should be known that this feature is, for now, little more than a rumor. It is not yet known when, if at all, Facebook will make it available and whether this feature will be available to all marketers on the site, or only to a select group at the beginning. Perhaps marketers would have to pay to get the ability to have a Want button? But the real answers might be coming soon, perhaps in a few months.

Scheduled Page Posts. This isn’t anything revolutionary, but it does make things more convenient for marketers. You may be planning to release a new product soon and want the Facebook page post to be displayed as soon as it becomes available. Now with the ability to schedule your posts, you can opt to have them displayed at a pre determined date and time. That way, you will never be late in making your announcements to your fans.

There are still a few more changes we will look at. Check back tomorrow for some more information about them.

Posted on 15 August 2012

One of the questions that comes up very often in online marketing forums is something similar to this: “I own a business in such and such industry. What is the best way for me to do internet marketing?” The problem with that question is that there is often no one specific answer to it. The world of online marketing is a very vast and diverse one, with many methods, techniques, tools and services that you can use to accomplish your goals, whether these are to get more visitors to your sites, to promote a specific product that you’re selling, or to get more exposure for your business.

The exact methods that you use will largely depend on who you are and what you’re trying to do online. But in the majority of cases, it is not just one marketing method that should be used, but a combination of several of them. What will be variable, however, is the degree of attention that you will give to each of these methods.

If you’re trying to get your business more recognized and known as the leader in its field in your local area, then using search engine optimization is a must, as you will need to ensure that people who search for what you have to offer will be able to find your business. A large number of people use search engines when shopping for something, so it is imperative that your site can be easily found by them. But SEO is not the only way to do this. If you want the best results, you should use a few complementary methods to get the word out.

You can, for example, make posts on local online classified ads websites. Or you could buy advertising space on websites that are related to your niche, or frequently visited by people from the area served by your business. To gain more visibility, it would also be a good idea to create pages for your company on the popular social networking services.

Once you see that you are getting results, you can keep your website visitors interested in what you offer by offering an email newsletter that they can subscribe to. You can also create a blog where you keep users updated on new happenings in your industry, as well as new products that your business has to offer them.

As you can see, there isn’t really a “quick” solution to marketing a local business on the internet. You should spend some time putting together a complete online marketing strategy where you will think about your goals, as well as the methods that you want to use to accomplish them in the online world. Remember that it is also important to keep track of your progress, as this will let you know which areas of your marketing plan are working well and which others may need a little bit more attention so that you can improve them and make them work as efficiently as possible.

Posted on 19 July 2012

The data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index is in and the results may have surprised quite a few in the online marketing world. Google + is the social network which currently boasts the highest rate of user satisfaction.

Does this mean that Google + will soon become the king of social media and take Facebook’s place? In theory, anything could happen in the social media world. Remember when MySpace was hugely popular among all categories of users a few years ago? Now, it lost the majority of its market share to Facebook and has been re-branded as a site that mainly caters to music fans, as well as people with “alternative” tastes, such as those into the punk or goth lifestyle. However, to be realistic, this isn’t something that is likely to happen with Facebook anytime soon, if at all. What is more likely, however is that Google + will keep on growing and attract more users.

There were several reasons cited as to why users were more satisfied with Google + than with Facebook. Here are some of them:

A feeling that Google + has more respect for users privacy than Facebook. In the study to measure customer satisfaction, 42 percent of respondents have stated that Google has an “excellent” commitment to protecting their privacy. Much fewer Facebook users have rated them as “excellent” for that point. Online privacy and security concerns are now becoming more important than ever for many users, especially those older than 35. People want control over who gets to see their data and how it’s used. Without getting into specifics, it just seems that according to the public opinion, Google + does a better job than Facebook on this point.

A better experience on mobile devices. We’ve said this time and time again. A lot of people now get online with a mobile device. Their numbers will just keep on growing as mobile device sales are up, up and up everywhere in the world. According to user perceptions, Google + offers much better functionality for its mobile apps, especially the apps for Apple products such as the iPhone and iPad, which have received very positive reviews both from professional IT reviewers and individual consumers.

Google + offers a better approach to advertising. Online advertising is everywhere and for many people reading this, it is their career and the reason why their business is in existence. Users are far more satisfied with the advertising scheme of Google + as opposed to Facebook for one huge reasons: there aren’t any ads on Google +. No search ads and no banner ads. Google understands that displaying pay per click or CPM ads on its social network may not go too well with users. This is why it uses a different advertising scheme, such as showing recommendations and reviews from friends. This, based on what we’ve seen so far, goes through a whole lot better with users, who don’t really like being distracted or bothered with banner and text ads when they’re busy socializing.

Posted on 23 May 2012

Ever since the Google Panda Update has been launched, there has been a lot of talk about it in the online marketing world. However, many people still don’t understand what exactly the update is all about and how it can affect a website. Here is some more information about it and ways to avoid problems associated with this update from Google.

The most important things to understand is what Panda actually is. Essentially, it is a filter that weeds out content that doesn’t have enough substance. The filter is ran on a periodic basis. Every time that it is, all the content indexed by Google goes through the filter again. Therefore, any content that has been caught up in the filter the first time can go through if it has been improved enough. If it’s still poor, then it will remain there and suffer a penalty in the rankings.

Some have argued that Panda is a completely new way that Google uses to rank web pages. This actually isn’t true. There are more than 200 different factors that Google uses to rank pages in search engine results. The Panda update is just one of them.

The main purpose of the Panda update when it was released in February 2011 was to deal with “content farms”. These are websites that have been responsible for “polluting” search results by returning web pages that had little relevance to the keywords that were being searched for by the user. A content farm is a website that usually employs several writers (can sometimes range in the thousands), which create content such as articles, reports, blog posts, etc. that are targeted towards some popular keywords being searched. These sites profit from the traffic that they receive when users click on the ads that they publish, which are usually for products that are loosely related to what the content on the page talks about. The quality of the information on a content farm can vary. Some sites have nearly professional quality content, while on others it simply reads like a bunch of gibberish written by someone who hasn’t even mastered basic English.

Since then, several updates to Panda have been released, by the main purpose is still the same: keeping low quality content from ranking well in search results. Websites that were penalized because of the update have a chance to change things. To get rid of the penalty, all a webmaster needs to do is to remove the content that is of poor quality, or replace it with something that is well written and relevant to the keywords that are targeted on the site.

The basic principles of search engine optimization still apply. Websites that provide their users with high quality content and that target keywords which are closely related to what they have on their site should not experience too many issues with this, or any of the future updates done by Google to the way they rank search results.

Posted on 11 May 2012

Do you want to build an online business that is both successful and profitable? Many other people have the same objective. There are certain things that you can do which will increase your chances of building an online enterprise that will work well. Here are some of these tips:

Focus on building long term results

While this may seem to be common sense, surprisingly a lot of those seeking to earn money online don’t practice it. They spend countless hours searching for the best business type, the best product, the best marketing methods, etc. You may have considerable short term success selling certain products, that is if you manage to get in before thousands of people flock to the same type of business. After the sales dry up, you will however be back to the drawing board and searching for another thing to sell. Constantly chasing after a good product is not a good strategy, but it is nonetheless practiced by a lot, especially those in the multi level marketing sector.

But what many of these people don’t realize, is that those who use the internet to successfully market anything, whether its MLM products, affiliate offers, digital products, etc. always have several different products that they are promoting at the same time. They are also constantly thinking ahead and looking to add new revenue streams before current ones run out. Even though the online marketing world is seen as an ever changing one, where you can’t predict what will still work in a few years from now, by having long term foresight you can ensure the profitability of your business.

Look at successful people and follow their example

There are many kinds of online businesses that you can get involved in. Each sub type will have people who are highly successful and have built a solid reputation of earning big money online. Do you want to be like them? It’s possible. What you need to do is to study what successful people in your business niche are doing. How did they get to where they are now? And most importantly, what are they now doing? Look at the products that they promote, how they work, how much they sell for, as well as the marketing and advertising strategies that they use. By gaining an understanding of how other people have had success online, you have the potential of becoming successful yourself.

This doesn’t mean that you would simply be copying someone else’s business. You can take the lessons that you’ve learned and apply it to your own activities. You can take many strategies that other people do and then modify and adapt them so that they would be much more suitable for your type of business and more in line with the goals that you are trying to achieve online.

These two are some of the most important tips that can help you gain success online. But there’s more. Tomorrow, we will see some other strategies that are employed by some of the most successful entrepreneurs to keep their businesses running smoothly at all times.

Posted on 20 April 2012

Now that you know some ways that you can use to better manage your online advertising budget and keep from wasting money, here are some more methods that you can use to increase your savings even more.

Take advantage of coupons and vouchers

Many online ad platforms, such as Google Adwords, Facebook Ads and many other smaller ad networks offer discount codes and vouchers which give you a certain amount of advertising credit for free. In most cases, all that you would need to do is to register for the service and put in your payment information. Sometimes, you will need to deposit a small amount, such as $10 or $20 in your account and the value of the voucher will be then added to it. By taking advantage of these offers you are essentially getting free advertising that you would normally have to pay for. The offers and their value often change, so the best way for you to find available coupon codes would be to simply search for them on Google. Very often you will find the current ones posted on many sites, or instructions on how you can get them.

Use some of the smaller ad networks

While there are some popular ad networks such as Google Adwords, Bing and Facebook Ads, those who are interested in running pay per click or cost per impression ads will find that there are plenty of other networks out there that can provide you with good quality traffic at lower costs. Some of these could be specific to certain geographical areas or niches. To find them, you can simply do a search on Google, or visit some discussion forums related to online marketing. This will give you some additional insight from members about which companies they are using and whether they would recommend them based on the results that they got. However, be careful before spending too much money with a previously unknown company. It is better to try them out with smaller campaigns to see if the traffic is giving you the results that you were expecting and if you didn’t have any problems with their service.

Work out deals with other webmasters

Rather than going through an ad network, you can try working out deals with other webmasters that have sites which are related to your niche, but aren’t direct competitors. This may allow you to get some good advertising opportunities at a lower cost. It may not be so easy to achieve when you’re just starting out, but it’s definitely possible. To find these opportunities, all that you have to do is to network. Participate in online marketing discussions, as well as forums that are related to your niche. This will allow you to meet some other webmasters and you may be able to get some advertising opportunities, as well as any other services that your business might need in the future.

Posted on 12 April 2012

Previously, we’ve seen how online advertising is one of the most cost effective ways of getting the word out about your small business to the world. There are dozens of ways that you can advertise online and some are indeed quite cheap as far as expenditures are concerned. But before you look at different advertising methods and compare their costs, you would need to learn how to make the most out of your advertising dollars and how to prevent wasting time and money. Here are some ways for you to do all of that:

Ensure that Your Website is Up to Par

Your marketing materials are what’s going to bring you interested site visitors. But it’s your website that’s going to convert visitors into paying customers. If your website looks like a complete train wreck, then you’re going to be wasting time and money bringing traffic to it, as it simply won’t be the efficient tool that it is meant to be.

Your site can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. The main factors that will determine it’s usefulness is how it looks and how it works. Your site should be appealing visually to your visitors and any of its features that deal with bringing you business should work 100% of the time. No online shopper wants to reload a page half a dozen time because the shopping cart returns an error, or the “contact us” form doesn’t load properly. They will simply go somewhere else and forget all about you and your business. Obviously this isn’t something that you would want to happen. So before you do anything else, be sure that your website works correctly.

Learn to Keep Proper Expense Records

Bad quality accounting could end up costing you a lot in the long run. If you’re going to pay anything to advertise your business on the internet, then you will need to keep accurate records of how much money you’ve spent, when, where and for what. This will allow you to do many things. First, you can more easily manage your budget and control your spending. You would then be easily able to determine whether a certain marketing method that you’re using is profitable for you or not.

Next, would be the issue of taxes. If you operate any kind of business and spend money on advertising, then that becomes a business expense. This is the reason why you need to keep tabs on how much you’re spending and where. Furthermore, keep all invoices and receipts for payments that you’ve made. This will let you deduct your marketing expenses on your tax return. Depending on the type of business you operate and the jurisdiction you’re in, you may be able to get some additional tax credits or benefits based on how much you spend on ads and marketing. You can find free -or very low cost- small business accounting software that you can use for this purpose.

Posted on 05 April 2012

Previously, we’ve seen how important it is to keep track of how your online ads are doing and what you can do to make this happen. But if you notice that you’re not really getting the results that you were hoping for from your online marketing efforts, then there are a few things that you can do to try and solve the problem. Here are some areas that you can examine more in detail to try to change the way things are going:

Your Ad Copy

Having a good ad copy is essential to success in the online world. The ad copy is basically the ad itself, which could be a text ad, video ad, or banner. Look at how your ad is made. If it’s a text ad, like in a classified ads site, is it well written, without 10 spelling mistakes per sentence and gives people an accurate representation of your business (products, prices, etc). Does it have a call to action? For a banner ad, is it visually appealing? Does it at least give some information about what you’re promoting? Having a good ad copy can make a big difference.

Keywords/Demographics/Other Parameters

These would be factors that are specific to each type of online advertising method you use. For example, if you use PPC ads on search engines, you will need to target the right keywords. If you use media buying, you can select demographics so that your ad will be displayed on websites that are more likely to be frequented by the section of the population which are your target market. You can also select your ad to be displayed on specific sites, etc. Don’t forget geo targeting. If you have a local business, showing your ads world wide is simply a waste of money. Get familiar with the advertising method that you’re using and tweak some of the parameters as necessary.

Marketing Channel or Specific Site/Service

Not every single advertising channel will be appropriate for every business. Also, certain specific sites or services could yield better results for some users. For example, a company may not get much luck getting good customers on the classified ad site Craigslist, but could get much more quality visitors and customers from Backpage, etc. Don’t hesitate to drop a certain service or advertising channel from your portfolio completely, especially if after making many changes, plus putting in time and money you aren’t able to make anything work well for you. There will always be other options available to you.

Obviously, these are just some general tips on what you can change to get some improvement. There are plenty of free resources available online such as e books and forum posts which deal with the specifics of certain advertising channels, or give advice on how to promote a specific kind of business online. By reading these materials, you will get a better look at some additional things that you can do to improve the way your online ads are now doing.

Posted on 04 April 2012

If you own a local business and use the internet to promote it, then you’re probably concerned as to whether you’re getting the results that you’ve wanted from your marketing efforts. After all, nobody wants to spend time and money on online advertising only to make little progress with it. This is why it is very important for you to monitor your progress with internet marketing and see which of your strategies work and which ones don’t work as well. This will give you an idea as to whether you should keep doing what you’re already doing, or whether there are certain changes or improvements that would be in order for you.

While this sounds easy to say, keeping up with the performance of your online marketing efforts will require a bit of work, especially if you haven’t really been paying attention to the results that it’s been bringing you. This happens to many small business owners that get caught up with their main line of work, especially if their business has been doing quite well as of late.

The first thing that you would want to do is to make a list of all of your marketing and advertising channels that you’re using. Then, divide these into sub groups. So for example if you use social media and classified ads sites, you would have these 2 as main advertising types. Then you would list the specific social networking sites that you use for your business, as well as the classified ads websites that you post your ads to on a regular basis. The same can be applied to other methods of online marketing that your business uses, such as pay per click ads, where you can further drill down the traffic and results that you’re getting by each network, each specific ad campaign & ad copies, as well as individual text or banner ads that you’re running on the network. Remember to be as detailed as possible as this will help you optimize your efforts.

Now that you have this list done, you would need to track where you website traffic is coming from. If you haven’t already set up a tracking script (there are many free ones out there that you can use), look at your server logs to see where the traffic on your business website is coming from.

As for tracking conversions (visitors who became paying client or took other action that is profitable for you), there are many free scripts that you can use in order to see which clicks are converting, if your site is directly selling items to customers. Otherwise, if customers contact you by phone or walk into your place of business, then tracking conversions won’t be that easy since you will be limited to asking customers how they found out about your business.

If you’re satisfied with the results, then keep doing what you’re doing… but keep paying attention to where your traffic is coming from. If on the other hand, you want to improve some things, then we have some more tips for you tomorrow.

Posted on 13 March 2012

If you’re planning to set up a Facebook fan page for your business, then you’ve made the right decision in getting more social media exposure for your company. But how do you use social networking sites to their fullest potential? The first thing that you need to know is what you should include in your Facebook fan page. Here are some general tips that will be helpful in that aspect:

Your basic contact information

You want your page visitors to be able to contact you if they have any question about your business or a product that you offer. Include your phone number, e-mail address, as well as address if you have a physical location.

A link to your main business website

Putting a link to your website on your Facebook page means that you get one more, high quality backlink to your site, in addition to potentially getting more traffic from social media visitors that are interested in learning more about what you offer.

A link to your blog

If you have a blog, then include a link to it as well, for the same reasons as you would include a link to your main website. You get a backlink and potential traffic coming directly from your Facebook page, which is a winning combination in the world of online marketing.

Links to your other social media accounts

Do you use any other social networking services, such as Google +, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. ? In that case, include a link to your other profiles as well, as this will allow you to gain more followers on your other accounts.

Pictures and descriptions of your products

If you sell physical merchandise, include some pictures of featured items on your Facebook page. The goal here is not to copy your entire catalog (unless you sell only 3 or 4 products), but to showcase some of your products to your visitors. Of course, you should link to the relevant page on your main website which sells these products.

General information about your business

Include a brief description about how your business works, such as the type of items you sell, services you provide, opening hours, payment methods, etc. This will give the visitor enough information to know whether what you sell is right for them. It will also cut down on some questions being sent to you by message, such as “Do you take Paypal” or “Do you sell such and such products”, etc.

Updates about your business and industry

Keep your page lively and up to date, by posting information such as new products, price reductions, promotions, etc. Even if you have nothing that changed, post some information that’s related to your niche, such as advice on using some of your products, or news that’s related to your niche. This will make your page look more “alive” and keep your followers interest, as opposed to a page that hasn’t been updated in several months and looks abandoned.

Posted on 12 March 2012

There are quite a few mistakes that online entrepreneurs sometimes commit when they build an online business, or promote a brick and mortar business through the internet. Here are some last things that you should know about when you use online marketing. By avoiding these common mistakes, you will be able to do your online marketing activities with less potential problems and hassles.

Here are two more mistakes that you should know about:

Associating with rogue marketing services providers

There are a lot of individuals and companies which offer marketing services to businesses online, most of which focuses on getting traffic to your website. While hiring a company to provide you with marketing services can be quite useful and help your business a lot, you should be careful about who you hire, as this can cause problems for you if you hire a “rogue” operator.

There are plenty of ways to get traffic to a website, however not all of them are ethical or in accordance with the terms of services of search engines and other sites. Some rogue marketing providers may engage in practices such as blackhat SEO techniques, forum spamming, email spam, creating social media apps that redirect traffic to a site without the user’s consent, promoting websites through adware that is difficult for a user to get rid of, etc. If you want to build a long term business, then staying away from these types of practices is the way to go. If you aren’t careful about the marketing techniques that are used by your partners, you can find yourself in trouble, such as by getting your site penalized in search engines, taken down by your web host, banned from certain websites and generally gain a bad reputation for your business.

Having an unreliable website

Your website is probably going to be the main way that you connect with your target audience online, so the most important thing is that it works and works well all the time. The first thing to consider should be your choice of hosting. Make sure you do some research on the web host that you intend to use and see if they’ve had any reliability problems or other troubles that their users have reported. Stay away from free hosting services or small companies that charge very cheap rates, as they’re the least likely to give you reliable service.

Besides the hosting, another common source of problems is the site itself. If you use a content management system or an e-commerce platform, make sure that you’re picking a reliable product that can handle your websites traffic well. Do some research on any content delivery systems and plug ins that you intend to use on your site, so as to make sure that you will only be using the best ones.

By knowing and avoiding these common mistakes, you will make your online marketing experience more profitable, easier and the whole experience will be more pleasant, both for you as well as your website visitors.